Tag Archives: editor

(This is a sponsored article.) As users spend 89% of their mobile time inside apps — and 56% of all traffic is now mobile — creating a mobile app has become a top priority for many businesses. Statistics show that the average American spends more than two hours a day on their mobile device. Having a mobile app can be beneficial for your company for a number of reasons. But we all know that building an app from scratch is difficult — the gap between a concept and solution is wide and requires a lot of time, effort and money.

Everyone has an idea for a mobile app, from your mom to the guy you met in line at the grocery store. You might even be one of those people, if you are reading this tutorial. Building your own app really gives you the ability to create anything you can imagine. For some people, the idea is the easy part; when it comes to making it a reality, they have no clue where to start.

Visualizations are the best place to start It’s much easier to start your website optimization journey from a visual perspective than a strictly numerical one. When you can immediately see where visitors and users are clicking and where they’re not, you’re instantly clued into obvious bottlenecks, blockers, and regions that are completely ignored. Take this Google Analytics data for example… When you start digging through your typical analytics packages, you’ll end up several pages deep, looking at listed data like what is shown above. Not always helpful, right? What happens when I look at visual website analytics? This is a…

It’s much easier to start your website optimization journey from a visual perspective than a strictly numerical one. When you can immediately see where visitors and users are clicking and where they’re not, you’re instantly clued into obvious bottlenecks, blockers, and regions that are completely ignored. Take this Google Analytics data for example… When you start digging through your typical analytics package, you’ll end up several pages deep, looking at listed data such as that shown above. Not always helpful, right? Visualizations are the best place to start What happens when I look at visual website analytics? This is a…

Editor’s Note: Our dear friend Anselm Hannemann summarizes what happened in the web community in the past few weeks in one handy list, so that you can catch up on everything new and important. Enjoy!
Welcome back to our monthly reading list. Before we dive right into all the amazing content I stumbled upon — admittedly, this one is going to be quite a long update — I want to make a personal announcement.

Sometimes things evolve faster than you think. Something that started as a simple WordPress blog back in September 2006, has evolved into a little Smashing universe — with books, eBooks, conferences, workshops, consultancy, job board and, most recently, 56 fancy cats (upcoming, also known as Smashing Membership). We have a wonderful team making it all happen, but every project requires attention and focus and every project desperately needs time to evolve and flourish and improve.

Editor’s Note: Welcome to this month’s web development update. Anselm has summarized the most important happenings in the web community that have taken place over the past few weeks in one handy list for you. Enjoy!
As web developers, we’re working in a very diverse environment: We have countless options to specialize in, but it’s impossible to keep up with everything. This week I read an article from a developer who realized that even though he has been building stuff for the web for over seven years, sometimes he just doesn’t understand what’s going on: “I’m slamming my keyboard in frustration as another mysterious error appears in my build script,” he writes.

Editor’s Note: Welcome to this month’s web development update. It’s actually the first one that we publish, and from now on, Anselm will summarize the most important things that happened over the past month in one handy list for you. So that you’re always up to date with what’s going on in the web community. Enjoy!
Today, I’d like to begin this update with a question I’m asking myself quite often, and that was fueled by the things I read lately: Where do we see our responsibility, where do we see other people’s responsibilities?

Editor’s Note: In the world of web design, we tend to become preoccupied with the here and now. In “Resilient Web Design“, Jeremy Keith emphasizes the importance of learning from the past in order to better prepare ourselves for the future. So, perhaps we should stop and think more beyond our present moment? The following is an excerpt from Jeremy’s web book.

Design adds clarity. Using colour, typography, hierarchy, contrast, and all the other tools at their disposal, designers can take an unordered jumble of information and turn it into something that’s easy to use and pleasurable to behold. Like life itself, design can win a small victory against the entropy of the universe, creating pockets of order from the raw materials of chaos.

The Book of Kells is a beautifully illustrated manuscript created over 1200 years ago. It’s tempting to call it a work of art, but it is a work of design. The purpose of the book is to communicate a message; the gospels of the Christian religion. Through the use of illustration and calligraphy, that message is conveyed in an inviting context, making it pleasing to behold.

Editor’s Note: Making big changes doesn’t necessarily require big efforts — it’s just a matter of moving in the right direction. We can’t wait for Paul’s new book on User Experience Revolution (free worldwide shipping starting from April 18!), and in this article, Paul shares just some of the little tricks and techniques to bring around a big UX revolution into your company — with a series of small, effective steps.